Collect Testimonials on Your WordPress Site Using Gravity Forms

Collecting testimonials from your clients can be a time consuming and slow process, so why not automate the process and let Gravity Forms do the heavy lifting?

After working with a client, there is a good chance you send them some sort of invoice or thank you email. What if you could insert a link in that communication to a form that allows your clients to compose a WordPress testimonial post and does everything but publish it? You can, and it’s easy! Using Gravity Forms you can have your clients fill out a form that automatically creates a WordPress post categorized as “Testimonial” with a picture they’ve uploaded. Here are 7 simple steps to automate your testimonial process:

1. Download and Activate Gravity Forms – First of all, you’ll need the Gravity Forms plugin to achieve this automated testimonial form. If you don’t already have Gravity Forms (which is also very handy for all sorts of other forms) you need to purchase, download, and activate the plugin.

2. Create Testimonial Post Category – Before setting up the form you’ll want to create a post category called “Testimonials.” Go to Posts>Categories on the back-end, WordPress menu. Fill out the Name and Slug (remember, the slug must be all lower-case with no spaces) for your category and click “Add New Category.” You do not have to select a parent or fill out the description.

3. Create Your Form – Once you have the plugin activated, and the testimonial category created, you can go ahead and create a new form.

In the back-end of your website in the left menu select Forms>New Form. A box will pop-up to enter the name of your new form, you’ll probably want to title this something like “Testimonial Form.” It is unnecessary to fill out the form description. Click “Create Form.”

4. Setting Up Your New Gravity Form – You will now see options to set-up your new form. You’ll see, on the right hand side of this screen, all the options for the various fields you can add to the form. We will be working only with the “Post Fields.”

4A. Drop down “Post Fields”, and click “Title.” This will add the “Title” field to the top of your form. This will be the title of the new post that is created. Most likely you’ll want to title this something like “Your Name – Your Company.” Set post status to “draft.” Select a default post author. Select your testimonial category for the “Post Category.” Check the required rule box for this field.

4B. Next, click “Body” under the “Post Fields” on the right hand side. This will add a body content field to your form. Click to drop down your newly created body field’s options. Change the “Field Label” of the post body box to “Your Testimonial” or “Your Review” to let your clients know this is where they put their review. Check the required rule box.

4C. Next, click the “Image” box under “Post Fields” on the right hand side. This will add a place for your clients to add their headshot. Drop down this box and change the “Field Label” to something like “Your Headshot.” You can select to feature the image, which we recommend especially if you display your featured images on your post excerpt or single post page.

4D. Click “Update Form” –You can always go back and edit your form.

5. Adding your New Gravity Form to the Front-End of Your Site – Now that you’ve created your simple testimonial form, you’ll want to decide where to display it on the front end of your website. Most likely, you’ll want to create some sort of landing page to send your clients to. For our purposes, we’ll just add your form to a regular page, but you can easily add Gravity forms to posts and widget areas as well.

5A. Go to the left-hand menu in your WordPress back-end and select “Pages > Add New.” Title your page, put your cursor in the content area where you want your new form placed, and click the “Add Form” Button (pictured below)5B. Select the form you just created, and click “Insert Form.” I recommend not showing the title or description, if you want to add a description or title, you have a bit more control over it if you just add these manually in the content area. Add some other content to this page to entice your clients to fill out the form, style it a bit, and publish your new page.

6. Add a Link to the New Form Page on Your Client Email Template – Now that you’ve created your fancy new client testimonial submission page you’ll want to link to it. We recommend adding a link to this page on your invoice or thank you email with a blurb to encourage your clients to fill out a testimonial. You can even give your client some incentive like a code for a 5% off coupon for their next purchase with a submitted testimonial.

7. Managing your Client Testimonial Submissions – When clients fill out your new form and submit it, a new post will be created and set as a draft within your WordPress posts. Since the posts are created and set to draft, all you have to do is review the post, add any custom formatting you want, and publish the post. Since the post will already be marked as a testimonial, it will show up in your testimonial post category archive page. You may want to create a link to your testimonial post category archive page in your main menu.

That’s it! You’ve set up your new client testimonial submission form. Let us know in the comments below how this worked for you and if you have any questions, feel free to ask!

Judi Knight is the founder and chief at New Tricks. When she’s not working with businesses to create their online goodness, she'll be checking people into the Urban Oasis B &B, planning WordPresss events or hanging with her husband and three Basset Hounds.

Jade, There are plugins that allow people to rate your posts. I have not used any but you can Google it and I’ll bet several come up. Make sure that you use one that is actually in the WordPress respository. To see if it is sanctioned by WP go to Plugins on your dashboard and search for post rating plugins or search for the particular name if you found it by using Google. Good luck. Let me know which one you found.